Your Advance Health Care Directive

Your Advance Health Care Directive allows you to make important health care decisions and designate an agent to carry out your wishes in the event you are incapacitated.

A “Living Will” and “Power of Attorney for Health Care” are similar documents used in other states, but in California, the Advance Health Care Directive (“AHCD”) is the estate planning document that is used to let your wishes regarding medical decisions be known.

One of the most important aspects of an AHCD is the power to designate an agent to enforce the decisions you make in your AHCD and to make decisions regarding your health care for you that you did not already make. Once you designate an agent in your AHCD it gives that person the power to decide on your behalf health care related choices. Your agent can be a spouse, partner, child, a family member, or friend.

The agent you appoint will have the legal authority to instruct medical providers about your medical care if you are unable to give these instructions yourself. If you become incapacitated, your agent’s authority overrides other people, and your agent can direct your treatment as spelled out in your AHCD. You may limit your agent’s authority or give him or her complete authority.

You should also designate one or two alternate agents for your healthcare decisions in the event your primary choice is unable or unwilling to act when the time comes that they need to make medical decisions for you.

It is important when choosing an agent for healthcare decisions that you discuss your decisions with them before you designate them in your AHCD. They need to be capable of handling the difficult task of enforcing your healthcare decisions and making them when necessary. And they should be geographically close enough to be present to make decisions when needed.

When you create your AHCD, you decide what you want, including use of life support equipment, donation of body parts, and whether you want burial or cremation. Your agent will make sure your wishes are carried out. Health care decisions may also include selection of health care providers, surgical procedures, medications, and directions to provide or withhold artificial hydration and nutrition.

Your AHCD can become operative right away, giving your agent the immediate power to make your health care decisions or it can become operative only upon a doctor’s designation of your incapacity. Whether your AHCD is operative immediately or “springs” into action when you are designated incapacitates, is entirely up to you.

It’s your body, your decision. By creating your AHCD you decide what happens to you and who enforces your decisions. Without an AHCD an unwanted family member may be making your healthcare decisions for you – and these decisions may not be what you want. Don’t let that happen. Create an Advance Health Care Directive today!